Colour Confidence Press Release

Birmingham UK, 16th January, 2006 - Colour Confidence, the leading independent colour management specialists, have today announced their appointment as distributor of the complete range of PANTONE®/gretagmacbeth monitor calibration devices. This includes the all new huey™, Eye-One® Display LT and Eye-One Display 2. This family of products completely breaks though barriers of cost and complexity that have kept many potential users away and also provides a migration path for users as their needs grow. They are all available immediately from www.colourconfidence.com

“Colour Confidence is the single largest Colour Management operation in the United Kingdom. They are focussed on colour management and possess the most comprehensive source of knowledge in that area,” commented Helmut Eifert, vice president of European Operations at Pantone. “Partnering with Colour Confidence means the widest possible audience will have access to the complete range of Pantone products, including the new family of monitor calibration devices.”

Just Rams Press Release

Just Rams Adds a Splash of Colour to Your Life

London, 16 January 2006 – Just Rams Plc today announces five colourful new additions to its USB 2.0 Drive range, the Integral USB 2.0 SPLASH Drives. Available in blue, green, yellow, pink and lilac, and incorporating Windows™ compatible Security and ZIP compression software makes the Integral USB 2.0 SPLASH Drives a safe and stylish way of moving files between school or college, office and home.

- Integral launches Five New Colourful USB 2.0 SPLASH Drives
- Windows™ Compatible Security and ZIP Compression Software
- Available with a 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB or 2GB capacity

Light Crafts Press Release

LightZone for Macintosh most significant advance in digital photo editing in more than a decade.

Palo Alto, CA & San Francisco Macworld Expo 2006 (PRWEB) January 13, 2005—Light Crafts, Inc. today announced that it’s breakthrough photo editing software – LightZone for Macintosh – has received a “Macworld Best of Show Award,” representing the most exciting hardware and software products announced at Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. LightZone provides a complete photo editing tool that significantly reduces the time photographers spend after a shoot, producing high quality photographs. LightZone offers photographers an advanced RAW editing experience that is easy to use while delivering a highly integrated editing environment that produces professional results.

Photo.net have reviewed the Tamron AF55-200mm F/4-5.6 Di II MACRO LD lens. The Tamron 55-200mm lens is designed for digital SLR cameras with APS sized (24mm x 16mm) sensors.

“The Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro is clearly aimed at a narrow - but significant - market segment. That’s the people who have bought a DSLR with an included 18-55mm “kit lens” and now find that they’d like something longer than 55mm. Now some people won’t blink at paying hundreds of dollars (if not thousands…) for fast, “L” series glass, and some won’t mind carrying lenses which are significantly larger and heavier than the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro. However there’s certainly a good number of new DSLR owners who will be looking for something small, light and fairly inexpensive, and the Tamron AF 55-200mm Di II LD Macro fits that bill.”

Website: Photo.net - Tamron 55-200mm Lens Review

Luminous Landscape have just reviewed the new PrintFIX PRO profiling system from ColorVision.

“If one wishes a reasonable match between one’s inkjet printer results and monitor, as well as maximal print quality, it is best to have a color managed system, in which ICC profiles act as a “translator” between the various ways that these devices interpret colors.  These profiles may be supplied with the devices, purchased, or one may generate them with appropriate equipment.  There are various approaches, but it is generally accepted that specialized hardware, designed for the purpose, does the best job.  In years past this was very expensive, but prices have fallen dramatically in recent years for monitor colorimeter based systems, and now this is also true for hardware based printer profiling.”

Website: Luminous Landscape - PrintFIX PRO Review

DigiCamReview have reviewed the Ricoh Caplio R3, a 5 megapixel compact camera with a 7x optical zoom lens equivalent to 28-200mm and vibration correction of the CCD.

“The camera is very easy to use, especially in AUTO mode, or one of the scene modes, even though the camera has a lot of options. The controls on the back of the camera are quite straight forward - the menus are very responsive and easy to read and navigate.  The menus are also easy to use, and the options are big enough and easy enough to see clearly. The modes are easy to access, quick and simple, mainly thanks to the right number of dials and buttons on the camera (the adjust button making it especially easy to get to regularly used options). Most functions can be worked out without having to refer to the manual.”

Website: DigiCamReview - Ricoh Caplio R3 Review

Website: Read my Ricoh Caplio R3 Review

Latest Prices / User Reviews

Nikon announced earlier this week that they are ending production of virtually all of their film-based cameras and lenses, with the exception of the new F6, the manual FM10 and a few manual lenses. More than 95% of Nikon’s UK business now comes from digital, with digital SLRs like the D50 and D70 helping to increase the Japanese giant’s recent profit levels. Do you think Nikon’s decision is just an inevitable sign of the times, with announcements from other companies on the way soon? Are you saddened by this announcement, or is it just more water under the bridge? Shout out now…

Here are the stand-out news stories from the last 7 days:

New Cameras
Nikon Ends Film Camera Sales
Hasselblad H2D-39 39 Megapixel Camera
Ricoh Caplio R30

New Accessories
ColorVision Spyder2Express
Epson Stylus CX5800F Multifunction Printer
Wacom Intuos3 Widescreen 12x19 Pen Tablet

New Software
Adobe Lightroom
ACDSee Pro Photo Manager Now Shipping
Apple iLife ‘06

Other Headlines
See Your LCD Screen in Bright Sunlight
Planet82 SMPD Image Sensor to Spell the End of Flash?
CompactFlash Transfer Rate Reaches 133MB/sec

The winners of the December 2005 PhotographyBLOG Competition have now been decided. The theme for December was “Age” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 5 winners:

1st Place
“A Day In The Life” by garybowers
View this entry

ShutterPoint.com one-year subscription with 100 megabytes of storage space
Kindly donated by ShutterPoint.
http://www.shutterpoint.com

In the first installment of our new The Peoples’ Voice column, reader Gary Pogoda explains just how tricky it is to buy a new camera for his wife. If you want to contribute an article and make your voice heard (minimum of 500 words), please email it to [email protected]. Now, over to Gary…

Website: The Peoples’ Voice - “Take My Wife’s Digital Camera ... Please !!!”

The Canon Powershot A620 is the 7 megapixel replacement for the very popular 5 megapixel A95 model. As well as the increased resolution, the Canon A620 has a number of important improvements, principally the Digic II processor, which is also used by the company’s high-end DSLR cameras. The twisting, flippable LCD screen is now a 2 inch model, whilst a number of new creative effects are available that you won’t find on other digital cameras. The Powershot A620 has a 4x optical zoom equivalent to 35-140mm, and aperture-priority, shutter-priority and manual modes are all on offer. With a current price of just over £200/$300, is the Canon Powershot A620 worth a look? Click the link below to find out.

Website: Canon Powershot A620 Review

BOE HYDIS Press Release

BOE HYDIS unveils new LCD with spectacular outdoor readability

- Outstanding visibility indoors and out with innovative light reflection control
- Optimal for mobile devices with lower power consumption and wide viewing angle

January 11, 2006 (Icheon, South Korea) … BOE HYDIS has successfully developed a new mobile TFT-LCD with superior outdoor readability under bright sunlit conditions.

The new product is applied with ‘AFFS-Outdoor’ technology that significantly enhances contrast ratio and reduces outside reflections on panels compared to BOE HYDIS’ existing AFFS (Advanced Fringe Field Switching) technology.

The product features improved transmission of 5.9 percent, external LCD reflection of 0.2 percent or lower and higher internal panel reflection that contribute to its enhanced readability.

Centico Press Release

Centico Photo Album Keeps Photos Safe with Time Warp Backup

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (January 12th, 2006) - Centico Ltd. announced today the release of Centico Photo Album 1.0, a digital photo management application for Windows 2000/XP with advanced support for backing up photos.

Centico Photo Album uses an advanced backup mechanism for digital photos called Time Warp Backup. Time Warp Backup backs-up editing changes (such as cropping and sharpening) independently from the photos themselves. In case of data loss, the photos will be restored along with all of the editing changes that had been made to them, even if these changes were made AFTER the photos were backed up. This makes it much easier to backup photos than with regular backup software, because the user only has to backup the photos once in their lifetime, instead of being forced to backup again and again whenever the photos are edited.

Samsung Press Release

Samsung and Microsoft Jointly Bestowed Visionary Award for Hybrid Hard Disk

SAN JOSE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Jan. 12, 2006—Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology together with Microsoft Corporation have been awarded the Visionary Consumer Electronics Award of the 2006 StorageVisions Conference for their pioneering work on Hybrid Hard Disks.

The Fifth Annual Storage Visions Conference (a partner program to the 2006 International CES) awards were presented before hundreds of show attendees at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The trophy was awarded for advancing the state of the art in storage technology for the consumer electronics, media and entertainment industries.

DIWA member Steves Digicams have reviewed the new Kodak Easyshare P880 digital camera. The Kodak Easyshare P880 is an 8 megapixel model with wide-angle 24–140 mm zoom lens and 2.5 inch LCD screen.

“I enjoyed using the lens’ mechanical zoom ring, a great improvement over the motor-driven zooms of most consumer digicams. Like the zoom controls of dSLR lenses, the P880’s enables you to move quickly and directly to the focal length needed for your shot composition. The lens is also equipped with a fly-by-wire manual focus ring. Manual focus is a breeze thanks to the MF assist function, which enlarges the viewfinder image as you turn the focus ring. The quality of the viewfinder image, enlargement of the focus area and intensification of the viewfinder image in dim lighting contribute to a manual focus arrangement which betters that of many dSLR’s.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Kodak Easyshare P880 Review

Latest Prices / User Reviews

CameraLabs have published their review of the Fujifilm FinePix S9500 Zoom, a new 9 megapixel digital camera with a 28-300mm lens with twist-barrel zoom control (also known as the S9000).

“Of course if you can’t remove the lens you’ll want some decent glass up-front, and the S9500 certainly delivers the goods in terms of focal range at least. Where most compacts and all-in-ones start at a modest wide angle equivalent to around 35mm, the S9500 boasts a considerably more useful 28mm. It then optically zooms right into a powerful telephoto equivalent to 300mm and even offers a ridiculously close Super Macro mode of just 1cm. Try doing all of that with the bundled 3x zoom you get with a digital SLR.”

Website: CameraLabs - Fujifilm FinePix S9500 Zoom Review

Website: Read my Fujifilm Finepix S9500 Zoom Review

Latest Prices / User Reviews

Northlight Images have just reviewed the new PrintFIX PRO profiling system from ColorVision.

“After my original PrintFIX review, I’ve had a few mails from people who tried the original PrintFIX and had problems. Now some of these were down to faulty measurements (bad scans) or printers that just weren’t very good. However, one area I sometimes found was that people were using the system, without really understanding what was going on. The PrintFIX PRO is an entirely new system and does an awful lot more than the original scanner and Photoshop based approach. To get the best out of colour management you really do need to learn what it is all about. I’m not talking about being able to give lectures and talks on the subject, just having an appreciation of the principles. Fortunately ColorVision have realised this and a lot of effort has gone into the on-line documentation. You can use printer profiles to get better prints without knowing how they are made, but if you are going to create them yourself, it’s time to find out more about the process.”

Website: Northlight Images - PrintFIX PRO Review

A bolt from the blue - Nikon have announced that they are ending production of almost all of their film camera range, as digital cameras take over. The F6 (pictured), FM10 (outside Europe) and a small number of fixed-focus manual lenses will be the only surviving film products after September 2006. All large format cameras lenses and enlarging lenses will also be discontinued. This move is obviously one of the biggest indicators yet of the increasing digital dominance.

Nikon UK Press Release

Nikon prepares to strengthen digital line-up for 2006

Wednesday January 11, 2006 - Following the success of our digital line-up over the last seven years, which has resulted in more than 95% of Nikon’s UK business being within the digital area, Nikon Corporation has made the decision to focus management resources on digital cameras in place of film cameras. This decision will allow Nikon to continue to develop products that match the demands of an increasingly competitive market place.

Despite this growing competition Nikon Corporation has continued to outperform the market, and has recently reported positive financial results which saw group net profit climb by 20% in the fiscal first half which ended in September. Group sales also increased by 9.8% to 342.85 billion yen in the same period. Sales of high end digital SLR cameras and the success of products like the D70s and D50 have helped contribute to these positive figures.

Ricoh have released a new firmware update, v1.28, for the Ricoh Caplio R3, a 5 megapixel compact camera with a 7x optical zoom lens equivalent to 28-200mm and vibration correction of the CCD.

- Improved accuracy of the AF algorithm.

Website: Ricoh Caplio R3 v1.28 Firmware Update (Windows)

Website: Ricoh Caplio R3 v1.28 Firmware Update (Mac)

ACD Systems Press Release

The wait is over for the fastest end-to-end photo management solution for professional photographers

VICTORIA, British Columbia – Jan. 11, 2006 – ACD Systems International Inc. (TSX: ASA), today began shipping ACDSee™ Pro Photo Manager, the highly anticipated advanced version of its award-winning ACDSee photo management software. Developed for professional photographers, ACDSee Pro lets photographers view, process, edit, catalog, publish and archive their photographs with unparalleled speed and ease of use. Led by fast RAW file viewing and batch processing, ACDSee Pro’s feature set is designed to increase productivity with its wealth of professional photo management and customizable workflow tools.